The continuation of Maus, and subtitled And Here My Troubles Began (From Mauschwitz to the Catskills and Beyond), Maus II is every bit as outstanding as Maus, and the two books really should be read together. In this book we learn more about the end of Vladek’s life, and one of the questions that is posed from the book is:
“They were survivors, but did they really and truly survive?”
Art’s struggles with his father’s personality — made so because of the war — are clearly shown. He is very honest in his portrayal, even to the point of demonstrating his father’s own prejudices — something you would think would be non-existent in someone who had been persecuted himself.
Brilliant. Powerful. Poignant. Intensely personal. In graphic novel format and the winner of a Pulitzer Prize Special Award in 1992, Maus is Vladek Spiegelman’s story of his survival of Auschwitz during World War II. It is also a story of the father-son relationship between Vladek and Art. In this first book, Art interviews his father about his intense past. Each nationality is represented as a different animal. The Jews are mice, the Germans are cats, and the Poles are pigs. We not only see the absolute horrors of Auschwitz from a survivor’s viewpoint, we also see one survivor’s son deal with the guilt of just being the son of a survivor.
I first heard about this book through Dewey for the graphic novel challenge. Thanks so much, Dewey, for introducing me to this astounding work.
I listened to part of the New Testament read by Max McLean and found it to be a nice break from reading. The books that I recommend reading first if you are not familiar with the New Testament are John, Romans, and 1 John. If you’re a Christian but haven’t read the entire New Testament, I highly recommend it. You’re really missing out if you just get bits and pieces from church only. I DON’T recommend reading the Bible for challenges, though. I listed this as one for the Spring Reading Thing, and I don’t think I’ll be listing parts of the Bible for challenges ever again. I will continue to read it, though, of course!
I normally do not like reading “war” novels — especially those about World War II. My heart breaks when I think of the evil that mankind can do. I did, however, love The Diary of Anne Frank, and I also loved The Book Thief.
The Book Thief tells the story of a German orphan girl named Liesel. Her brother has just died, and her mother gave her up because she couldn’t care for her after “something happened” to her father, a suspected Communist. She goes to live with Hans and Rosa Hubermann, who also have two grown children. Their son is a solid Hitler supporter. Hans is a gentle man who tenderly takes care of Liesel. Rosa is a gruff German woman, yet we also see gentleness and compassion from her throughout the story.
At her new home on Himmel Street she meets Rudy Steiner, a boy with hair the color of lemons. He is a good student and an excellent athlete. In one incident he paints himself black because he is obsessed with Jesse Owens. Liesel and Rudy become best friends. They play soccer together and steal together — whether it be apples or the books that Liesel takes from a prominent town figure.
Another person close to Liesel is the German Jew they are hiding in the basement — Max Vandenburg. The relationship they have is one that transcends simple friendship or a romantic attachment. Their hearts are truly knitted together due to the horrible circumstances of the war. Their bond is unbreakable.
Each character in the book is so perfectly portrayed and so lovingly depicted. I fell in love with each one and cared deeply about what happened to them. I won’t spoil any more of the storyline, because this book is a treasure to read and to ponder over long after the final page is turned. It is a story that will stay with me for many, many years to come.
I will be reading more of Joseph Conrad’s work. English was his third language after Polish and French, and his writing is superb.
Heart of Darkness tells a story about colonialism in the Congo, but it is so much more than that. It is more about men’s ‘hearts of darkness’ and what they become after they leave ‘civilization’. Marlow is a steamship captain in search of Kurtz, who is one of the best ivory traders The Company has. It is said that Kurtz has become ill and The Company does not want to lose him because of his high productivity in obtaining ivory. But just how does Kurtz maintain his high productivity?
Kurtz isn’t the only one to leave his morals behind when he leaves ‘civilization’. The actions of The Company Men leave moral questions as well. Is it only the ladies, as Marlowe states, who try to uphold society’s mores, or are they just deluded in thinking society, left to itself, has any morals?
It’s queer how out of touch with truth women are. They live in a world of their own, and there had never been anything like it, and never can be. It is too beautiful altogether, and if they were to set it up it would go to pieces before the first sunset.
This book is short but very complex. It is one that I’ll definitely read again at some point to try to understand it a bit better. I’m still trying to figure out “The horror! The horror!”
Some interesting passages:
I let him run on, this papier-mache Mephistopheles, and it seemed to me that if I tried I could poke my forefinger through him, and would find nothing inside but a little loose dirt, maybe.No, I don’t like work. I had rather laze about and think of all the fine things that can be done. I don’t like work — no man does — but I like what is in the work — the chance to find yourself. Your own reality — for yourself, not for others — what no other man can ever know. They can only see the mere show, and never can tell what it really means.
The mind of man is capable of anything – because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. What was there after all? Joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, valour, rage – who can tell? – but truth – truth stripped of its cloak of time. Let the fool gape and shudder – the man knows, and can look on without a wink.
I assure you to leave off reading was like tearing myself away from the shelter of an old and solid friendship.
The point was in his being a gifted creature, and that of all his gifts the one that stood out preeminently, that carried with it a sense of real presence, was his ability to talk, his words — the gift of expression, the bewildering, the illuminating, the most exalted and the most contemptible, the pulsating stream of light, or the deceitful flow from the heart of an impenetrable darkness.
When they are gone you must fall back upon your own innate strength, upon your own capacity for faithfulness. Of course you may be too much of a fool to go wrong — too dull even to know you are being assulted by the powers of darkness. I take it, no fool ever made a bargain for his soul with the devil; the fool is too much of a fool, or the devil too much of a devil — I don’t know which. Or you may be such a thunderingly exalted creature as to be altogether deaf and blind to anything but heavenly sights and sounds. Then the earth for you is only a standing place — and whether to be like this is your loss or your gain I won’t pretend to say. But most of us are neither one nor the other.
Whether he knew of his deficiency himself I can’t say. I think the knowledge came to him at last — only at the very last. But the wilderness had found him out early, and had taken on him a terrible vegeance for the fantastic invasion. I think it had whispered to him things about himself which he did not know, things of which he had no conception till he took counsel with this great solitude — and the whisper had proved irresistibly fascinating. It echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core….
But his soul was mad. Being alone in the wilderness, it had looked within itself, and, by heavens! I tell you, it had gone mad. I had — for my sins, I suppose — to go through the ordeal of looking into it myself. No eloquence could have been so withering to one’s belief in mankind as his final burst of sincerity. He struggled with himself, too. I saw it — I heard it. I saw the inconceivable mystery of a soul that knew no restraint, no faith, and no fear, yet struggling blindly with itself.
Wow! What a fantastic book. I don’t know why I’ve never read this before. I really thought I already knew what it was about–a girl’s father defending a black man for r*ping a white woman. It is about so much more than that, although of course that plays an important part.
Scout and her family live in Maycomb, Alabama. In the beginning of the book, Scout is going into the 1st grade and her brother Jem is going into 5th. Her father is an attorney, her mother died when she was 2, and her caregiver is a sweet, smart black woman named Calpurnia. The family relationship among all members is strong–very strong. Scout and Jem play together at home (but not in school–Jem insists). Scout and her father always read together in the evenings. This is a point of contention with Scout’s teacher Miss Caroline. Some of my favorite passages come from this section and they are hilarious to me as a former teacher who now homeschools.
The teacher asks if anyone knows what the alphabet is, and then. . .
…as I read the alphabet a faint line appeared between her eyebrows, and after making me read most of My First Reader and the stock-market quotations from the Mobile Register aloud, she discovered that I was literate and looked at me with more than faint distaste. Miss Caroline told me to tell my father not to teach me any more, it would interfere with my reading. [...] “Now you tell your father not to teach you any more. It’s best to begin reading with a fresh mind. You tell him I’ll take over from here and try to undo the damage–”
The Dewey Decimal System consisted, in part, of Miss Caroline waving cards at us on which were printed “the,” “cat,” “rat,” “man,” and “you.” No comment seemed to be expected of us, and the class received these impressionistic revelations in silence. I was bored, so I began a letter to Dill. Miss Caroline caught me writing and told me to tell my father to stop teaching me. “Besides, she said. “We don’t write in the first grade, we print. You won’t learn to write until you’re in the third grade.”
…as I inched sluggishly along the treadmill of the Maycomb County school system, I could not help receiving the impression that I was being cheated out of something. Out of what I knew not, yet I did not believe that twelve years of unrelieved boredom was exactly what the state had in mind for me.
I don’t want to give away too much of the story, so from here I’ll be brief. Scout, Jem, and their friend Dill (said to have been inspired by Lee’s childhood friend Truman Capote) spend a lot of time together in the summer trying to see Boo Radley, a neighbor who is a recluse. In fact, they are obsessed with this endeavor. Atticus Finch, Scout’s father, takes on the r*pe case. The fallout from the case is felt by the Finches from the community as well as from their extended family. The book ends well, though, with a very satisfying conclusion.
To Kill a Mockingbird won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1961 and was made into an Academy Award winning film starring Gregory Peck. It is the only novel Harper Lee ever published.
I listened to parts of this book on Audio CD read by Sissy Spacek. Highly recommended.
Caution: There are a few curse words and adult themes in the book. I would recommend this book for high school level and up.
"Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal." (John 6:27, ESV)
The continuation of Maus, and subtitled And Here My Troubles Began (From Mauschwitz to the Catskills and Beyond), Maus II is every bit as outstanding as Maus, and the two books really should be read together. In this book we learn more about the end of Vladek’s life, and one of the questions that is posed from the book is:
Brilliant. Powerful. Poignant. Intensely personal. In graphic novel format and the winner of a Pulitzer Prize Special Award in 1992, Maus is Vladek Spiegelman’s story of his survival of Auschwitz during World War II. It is also a story of the father-son relationship between Vladek and Art. In this first book, Art interviews his father about his intense past. Each nationality is represented as a different animal. The Jews are mice, the Germans are cats, and the Poles are pigs. We not only see the absolute horrors of Auschwitz from a survivor’s viewpoint, we also see one survivor’s son deal with the guilt of just being the son of a survivor.
I normally do not like reading “war” novels — especially those about World War II. My heart breaks when I think of the evil that mankind can do. I did, however, love The Diary of Anne Frank, and I also loved The Book Thief. 
